HEMIC gets new chief executive officer

Martin J. Welch has been named CEO and senior underwriting executive at Hawaii Employers’ Mutual Insurance Company, or HEMIC.

Welch will succeed Bob Dove, who plans to retire. Dove has been seen in HEMIC television commercials in which executives try to get a frog to say the company name.

The appointment came at Tuesday’s board of directors meeting, at which Welch also was named president of HEMIC Insurance Managers Inc., a HEMIC subsidiary.

He was most recently president and chief operating officer of Employers Holdings Inc., a publicly traded Workers Compensation specialty carrier based in Reno, Nev.

Isle energy saving goals called aggressive

Hawaii is among eight states found to have the most aggressive energy savings targets, according to a report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, based in Washington, D.C.

Arizona, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont top the aggressive-goal ranking and are among 24 states that have adopted and adequately funded an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard. The standard sets long-term energy savings targets and drives investments in utility-sector energy efficiency programs, the report said.

The organization also said Massachusetts remains the No. 1 state for energy efficiency, while other states in the top 10 are California, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Washington, Maryland and Minnesota.

The states most in need of improvement are Nebraska, Louisiana, Missouri, Kansas, Alaska, South Dakota, Wyoming, West Virginia, North Dakota and Mississippi, the report said.

Hawaii ranks low on pirating music

Hawaii is among the five lowest-ranking states for BitTorrent downloads, according to a new report.

Gainesville, Fla., was named the "pirate capital" of the U.S. in the inaugural Digital Music Index by global analyst Musicmetric.

The majority of songs delivered through the BitTorrent service are not licensed, therefore downloading of songs using the service is considered piracy. Artists receive no royalties for such downloads.

BitTorrent allows web users to share large files by downloading small pieces from many computers at once. The study tracked actual downloads, not the share or the torrent file itself. Musicmetric tracked the files and locations of downloaders, but not their identities.

In addition to Gainesville, other top metro areas for BitTorrent downloads per capita were Albany, Ga., Fairbanks, Alaska, Lexington, Ky., and Tallahassee, Fla.

The top states for per capita downloads were Georgia, New York, Kentucky, Louisiana and Florida.

Hawaii’s counterparts in the bottom five were Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and in last place, Minnesota.

Cultural center picks first executive chef

The Polynesian Cultural Center has named Hector J. Morales Jr. its first executive chef.

Morales most recently was executive chef at Turtle Bay Resort and Spa. During his Turtle Bay tenure, Morales received national accolades and had a leadership role in a culinary event at the James Beard House in New York City.

Morales has worked in Norway as head banquet chef for the king; in Australia, and at Raffles on Maui, where he cooked alongside Paul Bocuse, chef and culinary ambassador of France.

Aloha mart ‘beer cave’ part of design win

The remodeled Aloha Island Mart in Kahala won Aloha Petroleum Ltd. and its design firm CBX, the top honor in a nationwide design contest.

The store’s design won the "Sky’s the Limit Remodel" category in Convenience Store News magazine’s annual Retail Design Awards program.

The $2 million project involved the demolition and ground-up rebuilding of the store that serves as Aloha Petroleum’s flagship and design prototype.

Among its many features is Hawaii’s first walk-in "beer cave," which also is included in the recently remodeled Kaneohe store.

The exterior of the Kahala store is inspired by the plantation-style architecture found throughout the islands.

ON THE MOVE

Hospice Hawaii has hired the following new employees:

» Suzanne Morrison as a facilities manager. She has more than 15 years of experience, including as a patient care manager at Odyssey Hospice in Colorado Springs, Colo., and in various positions at Kaiser Permanente and St. Francis Medical Center in Honolulu.

» Aki Morita as a bereavement coordinator. Before joining the company, she was a recruitment and counseling officer at Hawaii Tokai International College, and she also has served in clinical positions with Wellspring Camps Hawaii and the Academy of the Sierras North Carolina.

The University of Phoenix Hawaii Campus has appointed Nicole D. Combs to campus college chairwoman for the School of Business. She was previously teaching business and computer courses for various colleges, and was a program manager for the Center for Applied and Competitive Technologies at Sierra College.